1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary aspects of the present invention generally relate to a cleaning device including multiple cleaning members arranged side by side along a direction of movement of a cleaning target so as to remove adhered substances from a surface of the cleaning target. In addition, exemplary aspects of the present invention also generally relate to an image forming apparatus using the cleaning device to remove toner from a surface of an image carrier, and a method for mounting the cleaning device relative to the cleaning target.
2. Description of the Background
Related-art image forming apparatuses, such as copiers, printers, facsimile machines, and multifunction devices having two or more of copying, printing, and facsimile functions, typically form a toner image on a recording medium (e.g., a sheet of paper, etc.) according to image data using an electrophotographic method. In such a method, for example, a charger charges a surface of a photoconductor; an irradiating device emits a light beam onto the charged surface of the photoconductor to form an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductor according to the image data; a developing device develops the electrostatic latent image with a developer (e.g., toner) to form a toner image on the photoconductor; a transfer device transfers the toner image formed on the photoconductor onto a sheet of recording media; and a fixing device applies heat and pressure to the sheet bearing the toner image to fix the toner image onto the sheet. The sheet bearing the fixed toner image is then discharged from the image forming apparatus.
One example of a related-art image forming apparatus includes an intermediate transfer belt serving as an image carrier and a transfer roller contacting the intermediate transfer belt to form a transfer nip therebetween. The toner image, which in this arrangement is formed on the intermediate transfer belt, is transferred onto a sheet at the transfer nip. A slight amount of residual toner, which is not transferred onto the sheet at the transfer nip, remains on the intermediate transfer belt after passing through the transfer nip. Such residual toner is removed from the intermediate transfer belt using a cleaning device. The cleaning device generally includes two cleaning members, that is, an upstream cleaning brush roller rotatively contacting the intermediate transfer belt and a downstream cleaning brush roller rotatively contacting the intermediate transfer belt at a position downstream from the upstream cleaning brush roller in a direction of movement of the intermediate transfer belt so as to remove the residual toner from the intermediate transfer belt. Accordingly, even when the upstream cleaning brush roller cannot completely remove the residual toner from the intermediate transfer belt, the remaining toner can be reliably removed by the downstream cleaning brush roller. Thus, the cleaning device can reliably remove from the intermediate transfer belt not only the residual toner but also an untransferred toner image which remains untransferred from the intermediate transfer belt due to sheet jam and which has a larger amount of toner.
However, the above-described cleaning device increases maintenance costs due to the following reasons. The upstream cleaning brush roller handles a larger amount of toner than the downstream cleaning brush roller. Consequently, the upstream cleaning brush roller is generally exhausted faster than the downstream cleaning brush roller. Although the downstream cleaning brush roller is still usable when the upstream cleaning brush roller is used up, the cleaning device as a whole must be replaced with a new cleaning device in the related-art image forming apparatus, thereby increasing maintenance costs.
The above-described problem may also occur in a configuration that cleans a cleaning target other than the intermediate transfer belt.